Turning pages of an amazing book

There’s a quote from someone whose name has been lost and yet he or she made such a strong statement that it moved lives. It simply states “Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”

How many moments can you look back on right now that take your breath away? I can think of a few, some wonderful and some so stunningly horrible that even to think of them now tears rush to my eyes. I live sometimes for those moments, the ones where you tell yourself… ” don’t forget this moment.. not ever. ” Those are the ones that will always play back in your head so vivid that you can still feel the air on your skin and recall the way your heart felt like it might stop.

Life is about change. I don’t want to slow it down, I want it to keep taking my breath away so that I am filled with more moments that bring the kind of smile that you don’t realize you have. I want to sit in my quiet moments, sipping my coffee on a cool morning and enjoy the replay of that first moment when I saw him, the way her laugh rings out like silver bells, the feel of a cold nose rubbing up against me, the tears that come up when you hear that beautiful voice sing out in such graceful notes. I don’t want to skip pages, even the ones that hurt so badly that you look around to see if anyone is looking.

I want sometimes to view ahead, take a peek to see what’s ahead. Will there be changes I didn’t expect? Will everything be alright? How many will be lost and leave such scars that they shadow over those tiny good moments? Sometimes those hurts don’t mean to be like that… I think they are just too fresh that they rise to the surface faster. There are times when I’ve felt so dark when the memory of my lost friend passes that I almost forgot the day we met and how that spark was so great that we couldn’t ignore its energy, or all of those moments we shared together were filled with breath-taking days that far outnumbered the last ones we took together that hurt so badly.

So I say today, stop looking around for the dark moments to store away, erase them with the light of laughter and memories that demand that you feel like dancing. No, we will never forget that day, but I do hope to ease the pain with more days that mean much more to me.